by Pati Nagle
Ghlanhras
When she felt night descend, Shalár arose from her rest. She poured water into her basin and splashed it onto her face, then donned the tunic and legs and the robe laid out for her. Silken slippers, once orange, now red, sat near her bed. Stepping into them, she sighed with deep appreciation. She had not forgotten the lean times in Nightsand, when such luxuries as these were unknown even to her.
“Come and comb my hair.”
The ælven female who waited on her came into the chamber and took up brush and comb from her dressing table. Shalár sat in a cushioned chair by the table and closed her eyes. The brush felt good against her scalp.
“Your father has not returned.”
The female said nothing. Shalár had expected no answer, but she smiled.
“He may be on his way. For your sake I hope so. I will give him until the morning.”
No answer still, though the brushing slowed. Shalár observed the ælven’s khi, watchful for any sign of rebellious intent. There was none. The ælven was not stupid. If she intended anything, it was escape.
Shalár knew how unlikely the female was to succeed at that venture. She need not trouble herself to discourage it, for if the ælven tried to escape she would be stopped by Shalár’s hunters, either within the palace or at the city gates, or if the female was more adventurous than Shalár thought, at the wall.
Dismissing the matter, Shalár turned her thoughts to the night ahead. No word yet from the west. Too soon still. Woodrun must wait.
Tonight she would venture to the foot of Firethroat. The volcano had fallen silent, which troubled her far more than the frequent tremors had done. No tremor had been felt in Ghlanhras for the past three nights.
The ælven put down her brush and began to separate strands of Shalár’s hair with the comb, preparing to braid it. Shalár brushed her hands away.
“No, leave it. I will have it braided later.”
Standing up, Shalár went out to her workroom. She picked up a handful of notes—her own, and messages from her subordinates. All writ on beautiful paper that was made here in Ghlanhras. Another luxury, and one she intended never to forgo again. Some of the ælven captives had already been put to work making more, using tools left behind by their fellows.
Paper. Cloth. All manner of wooden things, crafted of darkwood. These products were already in train. When her people arrived from the west, they would take up these crafts, which their forebears had abandoned in the struggle to survive.
Other crafts had yet to be revived. The working of glass, done in hot caves on Firethroat’s restless slopes, would be next, Shalár thought. She wished also that she might rediscover the working of steel, though that required not only fire but skill with khi, and such gifts were rare among Clan Darkshore.
Frowning, she pondered whether any of her ælven captives might have skill with metal. She had not thought to inquire. She glanced through the open doorway into her bedchamber, where the ælven female was straightening her bed.
“Come here.”
The ælven silently obeyed, coming to stand before her with downcast eyes. Shalár gazed at her, musing.
“Who among your people knows the working of metal?”
The ælven looked startled, then her brows drew together. “Gelithan. He works copper and tin.”
“Who works in sword metal?”
“No one now. Thelani once did, but she left Ghlanhras years ago.”
“No others?”
The ælven shook her head. Frustrated, Shalár caught her by the jaw and forced the ælven to meet her gaze.
“Are you certain?”
Fear glinted in the female’s blue eyes, and also a hint of disdain. “Yes, I am certain.”
“Where did this Thelani go?”
“To Woodrun.”
“Sword metal is not worked in Woodrun. Where did she go from there?”
“I do not know. S-she spoke of traveling south.”
Shalár pushed her away. South meant Southfæld, most like. She knew of no place between Firethroat and Midrange where the mountains’ bellies were hot enough for the making of swords.
Lost to her, then, that one. Mayhap she would find another, or mayhap the coppersmith’s skill could be turned to harder metals. She wanted swords for her hunters, for the coming fight with the ælven.
Bows, in the meantime, and darts as the kobalen used. She had a few captured throwing sticks, and could put the ælven to work making more.
She carried her notes out to the audience hall, where the hunters she had placed in charge of the various alterations to Ghlanhras waited to give her their nightly reports. Having heard them and heard from the keepers of the ælven and the kobalen, she gave instructions for ælven to be set to work making weapons, then accompanied the kobalen’s keeper back to the holding pen.
The sky was overcast, heavy with the threat of rain. She glanced to the northwest, looking for the angry orange glow of Firethroat against the clouds, but the mountain’s maw was dark. Frowning, she hastened to the house where the kobalen’s keeper dwelt, and where she kept the cup and knife she had selected from the governor’s trove to use here.
She was hungry. She had not fed for two nights, and while in Nightsand far fewer feedings had kept her, here she was more lavish. She wanted strength for her child, and that meant feeding whenever she felt the slightest desire.
In the house she took her cup and knife from the shelf, and sat beside the hearth where embers lay dying. Wahral, the hunter she had set to watch over the kobalen, reached for wood to add to the fire. Shalár waved her away.
“Choose a strong one and bring it to me. Hurry.”
“Yes, Bright Lady.”
Wahral left the house, and Shalár drew her chair closer to the fire. She put a small log on the coals and poked at them, urging them to new life. There was not enough heat in them to light the wood, so she added a handful of tinder from a box nearby. The scraps of wood began to smoke.
She heard Wahral returning, accompanied by the heavy tread of a kobalen. Standing, she followed the keeper to a wall where shackles had been mounted, and waited while Wahral bound the kobalen in place.
It was a male, deep chested and angry looking. Shalár took hold of its khi and its eyes showed the shock of her more thorough control. Wahral’s skill was adequate to her tasks, but Shalár had greater strength.
She held the kobalen motionless while she opened a vein in its arm and let blood run into her cup. Wahral stood ready with another cup, and when Shalár’s was full Wahral held hers beneath the wound while Shalár drank.
Strength flooded through her. She took a second cup, then gestured to the keeper to stanch the cut.
“The rest will go to the builders making the passage to the east outpost. I will send them.”
Wahral bowed and pressed dryleaf to the cut on the kobalen’s arm. Shalár waited until Wahral had hold of the kobalen’s khi before relinquishing her own grasp of it. The creature stirred, straining against its bonds, then was still.
Shalár returned her cup and knife to their shelf, then turned back to Wahral. She nodded toward the cup the keeper held.
“Enjoy your share.”
“Thank you, Bright Lady.”
Shalár left, the lazy sensation that accompanied a large feeding descending on her. She would rest a while before walking to Firethroat. Returning to Darkwood Hall, she sent Ranad to fetch the chosen workers to their feeding, then retired to her work chamber to make new notes on the night’s progress.
The ælven female was there. No attempt yet to escape, then, or perhaps she had explored the palace and discovered how closely she was watched. She gave no sign of noticing Shalár’s entrance, but remained sitting on the floor beside the bedchamber doorway, silent and still, eyes downcast.
Perhaps she was meditating, as the ælven were wont to do. Dwelling upon her fate, seeking to explain it, to justify it as some form of atonement, no doubt. Far be it from the ælven to accept the simple domina
nce of strength, Shalár thought with a wry smile.
She proceeded to make her notes, then wrote a message to the watchers at the gates and summoned Ranad to carry it. As she handed him the folded page she noticed him cast a speculative look at the ælven.
“Leave her alone. If her father does not arrive by dawn, you may have her before she dies.”
Ranad met Shalár’s gaze, then grinned. He looked again at the ælven, whose cheeks had paled. Ranad made a swift bow toward Shalár, then left.
Shalár stood and looked at the ælven, who remained motionless. As silent as the fire maiden’s statue, and as devoid of thought, no doubt. Shalár brushed past her into the bedchamber.
“Bring out my leathers and boots.”
The ælven obeyed, fetching the leathers while Shalár pulled off her robe and tossed it upon the bed. The female helped Shalár into the leathers, then handed her the boots. Shalár noted a smear of mud on one heel.
“You did not clean them properly.”
“Perhaps your next attendant will do better.”
The words were softly spoken, but Shalár did not miss the bitterness beneath them. She smiled.
“Your father has until the morning. You may yet be redeemed.”
“Someone must have hurt you very badly, to make you take such pleasure in tormenting others.”
Staggered by this insolence, Shalár glared at the ælven. The female seemed as modest as ever, gaze downcast, quietly kneeling, hands folded as she waited for the next command. Shalár’s eyes narrowed as her anger swelled. How dare this timid female presume to judge her!
Shalár spread her khi into the ælven’s, then clenched it into a knot. The female gave a soft cry and flinched, her hands fluttering slightly as if groping for a support they would never find.
“You would do well to remember that I am bound by no pledges. I will kill you now if it pleases me.”
As it happened, that prospect did not please Shalár. She was far more interested in the female’s possible usefulness, assuming her father did indeed return. The ælven needed a lesson, however, so Shalár drew upon her khi, drinking it into herself, enjoying it as she would a fine wine. Her flesh was already sated, but she had never known a satiation of khi. She suspected it was not possible. It might be interesting to find out if an ælven could be killed in this way, but not now.
Releasing the female, Shalár finished pulling on her boots. The ælven collapsed upon the floor, still conscious, but barely so. Stepping over her, Shalár went to the wall and took down her sword, strapped it on, and strode out of her chambers, much refreshed.
The night was half gone, and the threatening rain had not yet fallen. The sky was dark and sullen as Shalár strode to the city gates, choosing to walk in the open rather than through the sheltered passage.
She selected two hunters to accompany her, then left Ghlanhras and turned northward, toward Firethroat and the shore. She ran for the pleasure of stretching her legs, and the hunters kept up with her, though they flagged a little as they started up the trail that climbed Fireshore’s southern slope.
The path was disused, beginning to be overgrown. That would not do.
Shalár dropped to a walk and brushed aside a dangling firevine. She would have this way cleared, then have the coppersmith fetched out of the holding houses under guard and brought here to work. If he could be made to work sword metal, the effort would be worthwhile.
Her hand went to the hilt of her sword. It had been her father’s, her most precious possession, perhaps, though not as fine as the sword she had taken from her Stonereach, with its crystal-studded hilt and guards. That sword she would save for her daughter.
Shalár smiled, thinking of her child. She could feel her near, though the child rarely spoke. The small body inside Shalár’s womb was as yet too unformed to accommodate her, but there was not long to wait. A year was nothing.
The path leveled and widened as it reached the entrance of a passage that struck deep into Firethroat. Shalár remembered coming here with her father to watch the smiths and glass makers work, before the hunger and the wars.
She had come once since then, with her mother after they had fled Ghlanhras. Shalár’s heart clenched as she remembered the fearful days spent here, the suffering of those who sheltered within, and her mother’s decline. When Shalár had left this place, she had been alone, carrying only a few necessities and her father’s sword.
Drawing a deep breath, she strode into the mountain, her two hunters following. A faint taste of sulfur was on the air. Firethroat was silent, but not sleeping. Shalár felt a tension in the air that she misliked.
The tunnel had begun as a natural cave and had been widened centuries ago by the first ælven to work metal here. Openings on either side led to storage rooms, now empty. Shalár hurried past them, picking up a run again as she drove deeper into the mountain.
The air became warm, then hot and stifling. She reached the main chamber of the works, a wide, high-ceilinged cavern, empty save for years of dust and a few scattered tools whose purpose was unknown to her.
Fire pits, where lesser metals and glass could be worked over ordinary heat, were filled with cold ash. A large anvil remained, too heavy to be moved without great effort. Several boulders had been used to shape metal, their tops worn with beating.
Shalár walked to the far recess of the cavern, to the place where the swordsmiths had summoned fire from the mountain’s belly to work their craft. That took fine control of a powerful force of khi. Shalár knew that it was beyond her to grapple with the mountain. She laid a hand against the glass-smooth wall which the smith’s art would open, awed anew by what she remembered from her childhood visit.
One of her hunters coughed. Shalár turned to look at him, and he met her gaze with a rueful expression. Well, she had seen enough, and the air was indeed close in this place.
She led the way back out of the abandoned works, striding swiftly. One of the hunters gave a small gasp of relief as they came out of the passage into the cool, damp night air.
Firethroat loomed high and steep, the forest climbing up its feet but giving up before reaching its shoulders. The mountain’s jagged maw was ominously dark. Shalár frowned as she gazed at it. She needed to know what was happening within.
A rumble sounded, but it was thunder from the clouds overhead, not the mountain. Shalár walked a few steps southward and turned to gaze up at Firethroat, then explored the forest nearby with khi.
No night birds here. She reached instead toward the shore, where nighthawks hunted to the muted growling of the waves. Catching hold of one, she made it fly inland, up Firethroat’s side. She squatted on the path and closed her eyes so that she could give more attention to what the bird saw.
Firethroat’s mouth was lower to the north, where it often belched fire into the sea. There was no sign of a recent flow, and the air was clear of fumes. Shalár’s brows twitched together and the bird responded with an angry cry.
Soaring over the jagged rim, she saw only darkness below. At first it seemed that the mountain had fallen dead, but as she gradually saw more clearly through the bird’s night-blown eyes, she realized with dread that it was far from so.
Within the mountain was no hollow bowl. A swell of rock had grown inside it, like bread rising in a kitchen’s warmth. Shalár knew what the bloated dome portended. She had seen it before. She had seen Ghlanhras shrouded in a fine, gray dust that choked and smothered everything it touched.
Releasing the bird, she stood. “Come.”
Without waiting she turned southward again. When she heard the hunters following she hastened her stride. By the time they left the mountain path they were running again, and the storm broke over them. Rain drenched them as they sped toward Ghlanhras.
Dawn was near as they entered the gates, though the sky showed no light through the storm. Shalár sent her two hunters to the holding pens for their reward, and returned to the hall and to her chambers.
The ælven female h
ad recovered enough to put away Shalár’s robe and sit in her accustomed place, though she leaned against the doorway with her eyes closed. She started and looked up as Shalár came in, and there was fear in her glance.
“I want to bathe. Go to the kitchens and tell them to send hot water and my tub. Then go pick me some greens from the garden, wash them and bring them to me.”
The ælven got slowly to her feet. For a moment she seemed about to fall, then she steadied herself with a hand against the wall. Her eyes were vague and her face weary, her hair disordered. She left the chamber without saying a word, without meeting Shalár’s gaze.
Shalár went into her bedchamber and took off her boots and leathers, leaving them heaped on the floor. By the time she was out of them, down to silken tunic and legs, her bath had arrived. While three attendants placed the tub and began to fill it she rummaged for a pot of soap she had found among Othanin’s things, spicewood scented and rich with oil. She found it and brought it to the tub along with a comb.
“This is all the hot water that was ready, Bright Lady. More is being heated.”
She dismissed the attendants with a nod and glanced into the tub, no more than two handspans deep in water. Steam curled from its surface. Shalár set down her soap and comb on a low table that one of the attendants moved beside the tub, then sent them all away and pulled off her tunic and legs.
She stepped into the water and sighed with pleasure as its heat soaked into her feet. Sitting down in the tub, she cupped handfuls of water over herself, then began to spread the soap along her limbs and rub it into her flesh. Attendants returned with steaming pitchers, enough to fill the tub and enable her to wash her hair. By the time she had finished bathing and stepped out of the tub to dry herself with soft cloths, she had begun to wonder what had become of the ælven female.
She donned fresh clothing and looked out into the hallway. Ranad loitered there, and glanced up at her.
“Where is the ælven?”
Ranad shrugged. “I saw her going to the kitchens. I have not seen her since.”